Little Homer's Slate by Eugene Field — Read

AFTER dear old grandma died, / Hunting through an oaken chest / In the attic, we espied / What repaid our childish quest: / 'Twas a homely little slate, / Seemingly of ancient date.

On its quaint and battered face / Was the picture of a cart / Drawn with all that awkward grace / Which betokens childish art.

But what meant this legend, pray: / "Homer drew this yesterday"?

Mother recollected then / What the years were fain to hide: / She was but a baby when / Little Homer lived and died.

Forty years, so mother said, / Little Homer had been dead.

This one secret through those years / Grandma kept from all apart, / Hallowed by her lonely tears / And the breaking of her heart; / While each year that sped away / Seemed to her but yesterday.

So the homely little slate / Grandma's baby's fingers pressed, / To a memory consecrate, / Lieth in the oaken chest, / Where, unwilling we should know, / Grandma put it years ago.